I was recently honored to speak before a networking group about how a single referral helped Chazzano gross over $500K. That is exciting for the listener, but how do I make sure that they remember me? The answer is, with a joke, or an incredibly ridiculous situation. So, I started with this half-joke:

I was taught in an advanced networking class to teach your business friends about your crazy, dream referrals. For example, my dream has been for the Pope to be drinking Chazzano Coffee with our red Chazzano mug during the Easter Mass before millions of parishioners. I imagine the Pope pausing in his serious Latin Mass, and exclaiming in English, “that is the best cup of coffee that I’ve ever tasted.” (After the polite laughter, I continue) The next dream referral that I had involved Oprah drinking Chazzano coffee during her last show, pausing a few minutes before the end while she’s crying, and exclaiming: “That’s the best cup of coffee that I’ve ever had.” However, my third dream referral wasn’t crazy or absurd. I wanted a warm introduction to a great local chef who owned a famous Italian restaurant.

I explained how that third dream referral produced over $500000 of closed business for Chazzano Coffee, but they’ll always remember and imagine the Pope drinking Chazzano Coffee. I am not a comedian- I am sometimes funny and sometimes hilarious (at least to small children) – but I cannot create a great comedy routine. However, I have a multitude of funny stories in my back product that pertain to my businesses. At the cafe I sometimes say, “Do you know what happens when you put cream or sugar in Chazzano Coffee? G-d cries and an angel loses its wings.” That’s not hilarious, but it gains a chuckle or even a slight dimple. The Ice-Breaker should be somewhat funny, at least to your target audience, but it mostly needs to be memorable and not embarrassing.

As a business person, you know the importance of having an “elevator” speech when you’re stuck in the elevator with your dream referral. What words will encourage your dream referral to speak with you after the elevator ride.?You may have the body of the speech, but do you have an ice-breaker that makes them want more information?

Although this article assumes that you have a great grasp of your subject matter, you need a great “call to action” to share your expectations for the audience. Be prepared with the threefold components of Ice-Breaker, Body, and Call-to-Action to ensure your success and to help grow your audience. In a future article, I will discuss how to share your non-pushy call-to-action. In the meanwhile, work on ice-breakers that will grow your life and business.

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Now let’s step away from the grammar and instead concentrate on the egregious spelling error. “Expresso” is not the correct spelling of the Italian word for “quickly,” “espresso.” Again, a demonstration of poor employee training.

The next painful mistake, (for a coffee roaster), is when I see “espresso beans.” This reflects a poor education about coffee. There is no such thing as espresso beans because any single origin coffee or coffee blend that is expertly roasted, used within one week of roasting, and extracted well, is perfect for espresso.

Why is proper education of your employees and customers important? Employees who are educated well about your product will sell more and upsell more. Customers who are educated by you about your product will see value in your product, will strive to frequent your business and won’t be alarmed when you raise your prices.

The question asked on the sign should be stated in this way: “How many coffee beans are used (approximately) to extract one shot of espresso?” Even that question is ridiculous because it doesn’t educate the customer. In addition, there are many possible answers to this question because what if the bean is very large like the Maragogype varietal or very small like “Peaberry” coffee? Better questions would be, “What does Supremo mean in Colombia Supremo?”

When you own a business and are committed to educating your customers, search for complicated questions that draw out your customers’ curiosity. “How many pounds does each coffee tree produce each year?” The answer is 1-2 pounds each year. At my cafe, we’ll show our customers 2000 pounds of coffee and tell them that it takes 1000-2000 coffee trees to produce this amount of coffee. Imagine how many coffee trees are needed to produce the 50000 pounds that we roast each year. You’ve now forced them to imagine a huge number of coffee trees. Your questions should edify your customers and force them to think in a micro and macro level. In my question about coffee trees, my customers begin imagining just one coffee tree and then I exploded that vision to 50000 trees.  When I share that each coffee bean is picked by hand and that there is a long process of sorting, tasting, removing defects, and drying involved, every cup that I serve them will be filled with a new appreciation for the process of getting from farm to cup.

For your business, what kind of questions should you ask customers that will grow their understanding of your product and help them imagine the big picture?

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When I attended these three colleges, in chronological order, Manhattan School of Music, St. John’s College, and The Jewish Theological Seminary, I would take self-imposed mental health days. I would take one day every month and just play video games, watch inane television shows, and perhaps eat an entire box of Oreo cookies (dipping each one separately in a tall glass of milk, opening them up, eating the filling, and then redipping them in the milk). Life can be intense and sometimes you may feel like you’re drowning in your studies or choice of work. For me, taking the morning off occasionally, allows me to slow down my life and reconnect with the most important aspects of my life. What are my short-term or long-term goals? If you’re always living in the present, you can’t lift up your head and plan for the future.

My wife, Lisa, during our mental health week in Hamburg, Germany

Mental health days are on my mind now because of two recent events. First, a few weeks ago, I spent four days at home with the flu.  Notice that I didn’t say “four unfortunate days.” Although I hated that I was ill and spending my days with congestion, fever and fatigue, I had a glorious time with my children. We’d all wake up at noon, have some light fare, and then meet in front of the video game console and play video games until we were again hungry. We had marathon watching sessions of our favorite shows.  The other event is happening tomorrow, Christmas Day. Chazzano Coffee Roasters has been so deliciously busy during the weeks before Christmas. I am looking forward to my next mental health day, Christmas. We’ll do some of my favorite activities- sitting in bed and watching television, playing video games, playing board games, and just being lazy.

A few decades ago, high end restaurants would often serve a sorbet in between courses.  These mental health days are like that-a “mental sorbet.” I often spend my mental health day in activities that are not edifying and sometimes are so incredibly dumb that it is as if I have cleared my mind of all intelligent thoughts. Often a television show is my mental sorbet, the more outlandish, the better. Watching something like Flavor Flav (Flavor of Love) and the Jersey Shore are my favorite vehicles for mind cleansing. I have personally watched every single episode of both of these shows. Every worry in my mind and every serious problem is wiped away with each minute that I watch. I am always searching for new sources of “mental sorbet.” It clears my mind and allows me to write better and to laugh more.

One of the greatest and most painful parts about being an observant Jew is the many holidays that fill the year. For four holidays, Passover (Spring), Shavuot (Summer), Rosh Hashanah (Fall), and Sukkot (later Fall), I am required to take at least 2 days in a row off from work. Chazzano Coffee Roasters is closed for 12 days for these four holidays. I love the Jewish holidays because they force me to take mental health days, to re-evaluate everything that I’m doing in my life. They also force me to create a balance in my relationships with my family.  The greatest mental health day is built in to my Jewish observance- the Jewish Sabbath. Every Friday night at sundown, our business lives end completely. We do no manner of business whatsoever from Friday night to Saturday night. We are forced to spend time praying at our local synagogue, eating three meals with our family, and studying. We are limited in our travels because observant Jews are not allowed to drive or ride in a car. The Jewish Sabbath is a wonderful mental health day. Even my tasting palate is wiped clean. After one day of not roasting coffee and not stepping into my shop, I am able to appreciate the various notes of the coffee with greater skill.

Everyone needs to be selfish occasionally. Not often, just occasionally. You need to ask yourself, “what will make me, and only me, happy right now?” I have a long list of things to do that are selfish- spend a few hours writing, playing video games (with my children), catching up on “Orange is the New Black”, or going out to lunch by myself. We all spend our days trying to balance our personal, professional, and family lives. We’re often draining our creative batteries trying to fulfill our responsibilities to our family, employees, business friends, and community organizations. Take time to be selfish with a mental health day. Do stupid, non-destructive, activities that help clean up the foggy tasks that inundate you with busy work.

If you’re a business owner, hire responsible employees with good character that help you create wealth for you and for themselves. If you hire the best people, you can sometimes sleep later and more importantly, take vacations. If you work for someone else, take time off or use your day off as a mental health day.  The nonsensical and trite saying, a watched pot never boils, reminds me that if you’re constantly working on your life, on your plan, it will never boil. Take a step back and stop planning. Just relax. You’ll find the answers in the quiet times.

Frank is the owner of Chazzano Coffee Roasters and founder of God and Coffee Consulting. His first book, “God Cries and An Angel Loses its Wings,” is available online and at Chazzano Cafe. The above excerpt is from his soon to be published book, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” 

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During Jewish morning services, men (traditional) and women (traditional Conservative) wear phylacteries or tefillin in Hebrew. In the boxes that are placed on your bicep and between your eyes, there are words of praise for God. What is most interesting is that this is one example of a “power” uniform. When I wear this every morning, I feel powerful- as if I’m a non-lethal warrior for God. The straps are made of leather and are tightly wound around our arms. It is worn every day for 30-40 minutes. In addition, a Jew wears a prayer shawl with 4 corners with fringes called tzitzit which represent the 613 commandments that God has commanded the Jews. Together the phylacteries and prayer shawl create a powerful uniform that provides us with comfort and power to confront and praise God.

Max is wearing Tefillin (phylacteries) and a self-made Tallit (prayer shawl) for morning services.

If you’re looking for a job, spend your day in your power “clothes” even if you don’t have an interview. With this confidence, speak with everyone that you meet and make sure that you have multiple copies of your resume in the car. If you’re participating in a phone interview, wear something that makes you powerful. No one will really know that you’re wearing your pajamas, but your tone and demeanor will change with your choice of clothes. If you’re an entrepreneur or professional, find out what particular power suit brings you added confidence, pride, and makes you feel like a wealthy person. When you’re wearing your baggy t-shirt and sweatpants you may be comfortable, but you’re almost invisible. If you’re lucky to be drop dead gorgeous, it probably doesn’t matter what you wear, but as a business owner, I like to hire confident people.

People want to do business with confident looking people. We sometimes say, “That person looks like a million bucks.” However, if they have poor posture or they are lacking a smile in the face and eyes, the “power suit” won’t help. If you feel powerful in a particular clothing ensemble, it will probably improve your posture, add a few smile lines to your face, and people will be attracted to your rosier worldview. 

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Be a funeral crasher. Or maybe not, but attend the funerals of people that you know even tangentially. I attended a funeral for a man whose children repeated his oft spoken phrase, “I’m too blessed to be stressed.” It reminded me of the importance of counting one’s blessings, to realize how important is was to stop complaining about things that one cannot control or change. He forever changed his family’s life by reminding them how beautiful their lives were. In addition, it’s fascinating what family members and clergy say about the deceased. Eulogies are meant to be true but complimentary. In Judaism, you’re not allowed to say anything bad about the deceased unless it’s something funny like “my dad used to sing me to sleep but he had the worst voice ever.” That phrase “too blessed to be stressed” resonates in my life now. Fifteen years ago, it may not have resonated because life was simpler and a different kind of stressful. Today, with the crazy, happy and complicated life that I’m living, it’s easy to become stressed out, but why should I be stressed. I have three beautiful children, an awesome wife, and I’m living my dreams. I truly am too blessed to be stressed.

As clergy in various synagogues for over 15 years, I’ve learned a great deal about how to live a happy and healthy life through the time spent with the deceased’s family before and after the funeral. There are several questions that clergy are taught to ask to delve into what made their loved one special. Did she volunteer in the community? What did she do for a living? Was he involved in the synagogue community? What would she say was her greatest accomplishment? Did he have any special hobbies? What were her favorite sayings? Anything funny to relate? The rest of the information is found in the storytelling of the mourning family. When you sit back and listen to stories, you are forced to internalize their messages and learn more about living a happy, healthy and successful life.

There is great tragedy when you lose your 99 year old grandmother and when you lose your 54 year old mother. I’ve lost both. Sure, they’re different, but still immensely tragic. You never stop feeling the loss. Two of my children are named after my father and mother, of blessed memory, but nary a day goes by without thinking about how they shaped my life. After almost 10 years, when I have a question about a huge life changing event, my hand starts moving quickly to my phone to call my father, of blessed memory. However, I can dip into my memories and interpretations about how my parents, of blessed memory, would have dealt with a particular situation. I don’t have the luxury of a hologram recording of my parents’ advice like Star Wars, nor do their incorporeal spirits visit me in any visible form. Use the stories of mourners to help you learn how to live a balanced and happy life. Their stories will also help you remember your personal stories of your deceased relatives.

There is a recurring theme found in the Jewish prayerbook with the words, reviving the dead. The belief in the coming Messiah, that will bring peace in the world and will revive the dead, is still strong in Orthodox Judaism and still has connections with Conservative Judaism. Yet, if we pause in our traditional translation and rather look at ways that one can help revive the dead, we see that our memories and stories about our deceased revives their memory and legacy in our lives. My father, of blessed memory, still lives in my life. He is not corporeal, but his presence resonates in all that I do. Especially during very dark days, I imagine what my father would say or do. By being part of the conversation and hearing the eulogies of the mourning family and clergy, you are helping to revive the memories of their deceased relatives.

So, when you have an opportunity to pay your respects to the deceased and comfort mourners in your life, drop everything else that you’re doing. The experience will enrich your life with knowledge and wisdom. Besides, bringing comfort to those who are mourning will bring greater peace and reward into your life. Begin writing your own eulogy. 

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One night, while the kids and Lisa were out swimming, I cooked. I knew that I wanted to create something easy, but I wanted to have some fun. I made homemade tomato sauce, cooked some elbow pasta, and poured the al dente pasta over garbanzo beans to create a Tamarazo family favorite of Pasta Fazool or pasta e fagioli. I could have stopped there but I saw some other ingredients in the pantry. I began to create a new dish like the fearsome TV chefs with hearts of palm, green chiles, garbanzo beans, fresh garlic and fresh onions, cumin, freshly ground salt, pepper, and while it was off the fire, I sprinkled some fresh Michigan maple syrup. While I was cooking the sauce, I burned the onions slightly, but the tomato sauce made from whole tomatoes masked the taint of burnt onions. While cooking the mystery dish, I was a little heavy handed with the pepper and began to mix in the cumin, sugar, and maple syrup to hide the excess pepper. Sometimes when Lisa is improvising over a dish, we’ll have a short meeting with Max to decide what spice or spices should we add to this not yet delicious dish.

My attempt at Top Chef

How do you deal with the various dips and turns that we experience in life? It’s just technique and practice. Those chefs have many tools in their cooking tool kit. They’ve worked at busy restaurants where they ran out of an essential ingredient, or were so incredibly busy that they thought the shift would never end. They were trained, either through apprenticeships or cooking schools on the techniques necessary for the mysterious life of a chef. On one show, they replaced the chef’s knife with scissors She had to cut through a thick steak with scissors!

One achieves success in life with technique and practice. As a singer, technique is necessary on the days that you really don’t want to sing. When you’re feeling lethargic, depressed, ill, angry, or upset, with proper technique that has been practiced for years, no one will ever know what’s going on in your life. Technique allows basketball players who are screaming with knee pain or have the flu to still be the best player on the court.

The key to a successful life is learning how to improvise when life seems extremely difficult. Life is difficult normally while you balance the needs of your children, your spouse, your business and employees and your personal life. Then throw in something terrible like the death of your spouse’s parent, or your college student becomes unexpectedly ill, or an unexpected tax bill comes at the worst time. How will you now balance your life? If you are steady with your technique and understand what is most important in life, that is, your children and spouse, then you can achieve success and balance even with the unexpected happens.

This is a selection from Frank’s soon to be published book, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

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Then, I said, but what about stark, raving mad? Does stark, raving mad really mean what it sounds like? Well, yes, but then I started reading every reference to “stark, raving mad.” Did you know that you don’t need the comma after “stark?” Now, you do. When was the first reference to this phrase? The earliest version was in 1489 in John Skelton’s The Death of the Earl of Northumberland: “I say, ye comoners, why wer ye so stark mad?” But the first version using all three words happened a few centuries later, when Henry Fielding used ‘stark raving mad’ in The Intriguing Chambermaid in1734: “I find I am distracted! I am stark raving mad!”

And did you know that another earlier version, sandwiched between “stark mad” and “stark raving mad,” is “stark staring mad” found in John Dryden’s Persius Flaccus of 1693: “Art thou of Bethlem’s Noble College free? Stark, staring mad.” It gets worse for the writer who just wants to make his point. In the 17^th century, there were two forms of mental illness that were recognized- melancholia which was depression, and Raving Madness. After all of that, now the question is: was I stark, raving mad before or after I tumbled down the stark, staring madness of internet research? Is writing a form of Raving Madness?

 Frank is the author of “God Cries and An Angel Loses its Wings,” and is currently working on two other books, “You don’t want dessert, do you?” and “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

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Besides the perspiration on their scalp, another sign of a server who is “in the weeds” is when they are constantly looking down. In their scared brain, they are saying, “Maybe some of the customers will go away if I don’t acknowledge them.” They are making one beverage at a time. Every time that they lift their head, more customers come through the door. They have not been trained on how to handle a rush of customers. If the server asked several groups of customers at a time what they wanted, they may be able to fill orders quickly. If four different customers want a large coffee to go, wouldn’t it make sense to brew them all together, gather the four cups at the same time and maybe cash them out together? It sure would. You’ll never know that if you keep your head down and process orders one at a time. If you knew that there were six different orders for lattes, small and large, wouldn’t it save time to brew all of the espresso shots at the same time, steam the milk at the same time, and process their orders at the same time? Suddenly, you’re no longer “in the weeds,” because everyone has at least part of their order in front of them. The customers know that you’re busy, but now they’re impressed with you. You smiled throughout that secretly painful ordeal, processed orders quickly, and made everyone happy. You’ve created happy soon-to-return customers, created wealth for the company and for you (in tips), and you’ve gained a life-long skill of learning to turn “into the woods” into a “controlled slam.”

When I was a server in various restaurants, but especially at the Rustic Inn in Annapolis, Maryland, and Lucky’s Grill in NYC, I learned techniques to get out of the weeds- or never to get in the weeds at all. For example, when you have 10 tables, treat them as one table- treat them as if it’s a family dinner. If everyone knows that you know that they exist, they will understand if it takes a longer time. Never pass a table without looking at them in the eyes. Say hello, ask if everything is okay, but look at them in the eyes and smile. They may need a fork because their fork fell on the floor. As you pass every table, look at your customers. They will forgive the tardiness of receiving food and beverages because they’ll realize that you’re just crazy busy. Make sure that everyone has something to drink in front of them. Do triage and make the situation manageable.

My cafe is frequently busy and when we are slammed- note that I didn’t say “in the weeds”- we treat the 30 customers that come in as one table. While we help each customer, one at a time, when another customer comes in we say, “Hello, how are you? We’ll be right with you.” I’ll even introduce them to each other so that they forget that they waited 10 minutes for a cup of coffee. When we take care of one customer, we’re constantly looking around with a smile, saying- we’ll be right with you. The smile and constant communication is the key to turning an experience “in the weeds” to just being crazy busy or slammed. “Slammed” is when a plethora of customers enter your establishment at the same time and they all feel that they have been taken care of.

I remember a morning at Chazzano when we were slammed- not in the weeds ever- because we make “fancy” coffee. No one is upset about the time it takes when you are brewing coffee in a fancy brewer like a pour-over, vacuum syphon, iced pourover, Turkish. The show becomes part of the entertainment. When I worked at the Rustic Inn, and I was neglecting a few tables while setting the Baked Alaska aflame with Grand Marnier, no one was fidgety or angry that they couldn’t get their check or dessert. They appreciated the show. The same scenario happens at my cafe- there are 20 people waiting, but while we’re making 2 Turkish coffees, 2 vacuum syphons and 3 hot chocolates, customers are mesmerized by the show. So, customer service is not just dependent on the server, but also dependent on the management providing the proper tools to keep customers entertained.

This is an excerpt from Frank’s upcoming book, “You don’t want dessert, do you?”

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My wife, Lisa, and I made a mistake. We should have involved her in the business from the beginning instead of allowing her to spend more time with the kids. That’s a difficult thing to say out loud because how could we possibly say that she should have seen the kids less and worked in the business. The reason for this crazy opinion that we share is that our two personalities balance each other out. I am a spender. I love life, and I love anything that I believe will enrich my life. A $65 Barolo wine even when we had lots of credit card debt? Sure. Two hundred dollars worth of Jewish music books? Sure- I’m a Cantor…I need them. I like the fine things available in life. Lisa, on the other hand, is much more cautious than I am and correctly budgets everything to make sure that we can enjoy it without financial pain. I am spontaneous and I’ve spent money on business items that I believed would grow Chazzano Coffee Roasters. It would be incorrect to categorize us as spendthrift and miser. We move in and out of those roles depending on what is happening in our lives.

Lisa and I agree that as we spent all of our life savings in the business, we should have had more discussions on payroll, marketing, and coffee purchasing budgets. When the business was growing at an incredibly fast rate, (we grew from 3 to 200 wholesale accounts in 4 years), and we were worried about having enough cash flow to keep up the momentum, Lisa’s involvement grew exponentially. Suddenly, she was delivering coffee for over 10-15 hours in a single day to all of our wholesale and retail customers. Lisa would be opening the cafe at 7am every morning and staying for 5 hours daily and then delivering for several hours later. She was exhausted, angry, and upset that she was becoming stuck in the business as a worker instead of an owner of a coffee roasterie. At the same time, I was successfully pulling myself out of the business and living the life of a visionary. My personal goals were becoming a reality. I had time to write books, communicate with customers through social media, and go on sales calls or just have great conversations in my makeshift office in the back of the cafe. I was transitioning to the life of an owner- I even have an assistant coffee roaster roasting coffee under my direction. I was living my dreams.

But Lisa made herself temporarily indispensable- It reminded me of that Michael Corleone scene in Godfather III when he lamented that no matter what he does, he can’t get out of the mafia life- “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” She saved the business money with deliveries, and helped tame the growing list of wholesale and coffee club lists. And yes, we began to pay ourselves regularly and our financial dreams began to get closer to realization. But she was miserable. She loved the days where she went on road trips with the kids and just spent the day being with them. She loves the coffee business that we created together, but when you’re in your late 40s you just don’t want to wake up every single morning to brew coffee for customers.

Therefore, we created a goal for our family to solve this question: How do we afford losing Lisa and hiring additional employees to assist with her responsibilities?

Lisa and one of our three funny children

We needed to increase revenue and cash flow. In a commodities business, one way of increasing cash flow is to find the products that you are capable of selling quickly at a great margin. There are always some products that you need to carry in your business that may be upsell items. Or they are part of a bulk purchase that saves you money in the long run. However, cash flow will suffer if you have too much stock on hand and too much inventory that takes a month to sell. We chose to buy certain single origin coffees that we knew would be sold within the week. We tightened up many of our regular purchases and found bargains. A local cable company wanted to gift us coffee cup sleeves to promote their company? That’s great. It saved us hundreds of dollars. We also insisted that all of our wholesale accounts pay on time, and most of them now pay C.O.D. In addition, we kept our prices at the same level that you expect from a boutique coffee roasterie because it enabled us to stay in business, thrive, and pay our employees well. Our prices helped us to buy new, exciting coffees that it’s impossible to find anywhere else. That created greater value to the customer experience and customers bought those new coffee offerings quickly because they were worried that it would be sold out before they had the chance to purchase them. That mindset created the cash flow because if my customers quickly purchase the coffee, it sells quickly, and those who didn’t get a chance to sample it, will make sure that they buy the next exclusive coffee.

We limited employee hours to ensure no costly overtime. We placed one of our full-time employees on salary to ensure that there was a limit to payroll. We often said no, temporarily, to specialty markets that wanted us to demo our products in their stores because it would increase our payroll. As our business grew, and a packed cafe became the norm, we then began the next step of releasing Lisa from the bondage of the, ahem, daily grind.

We began to hire a few new employees with the intent of teaching them how to replace Lisa. As of this writing, we’ve arrived. Lisa is no longer be opening the cafe at all. She will continue delivering coffee to all of our customers, but that is also temporary. Allowing Lisa to wake up at the same time with the kids and spend much of the day with them, helps our family. One of the purposes of this book is to remind you that it’s impossible to have great success in your business and fail as a husband or father and remain happy. You need to include family, personal, and business in the same sentence with every goal or dream to which you aspire. You just created a great company, but are you coming home to a happy family life? Your family is thankfully happy and healthy, but are you? Are you working all day long and eating poorly and forgetting to exercise? If you’re not happy and healthy, your family life will soon suffer. You’ll definitely bring home your unhappiness to your family and then your health will suffer. And what happens when your health and happiness deteriorate? Your business will suffer. It’s really a house of cards.

Our goals included: Allowing Lisa to spend more time with the kids, paying ourselves a good salary so that we can happily support our family, and creating a business that would operate and grow without our daily assistance. Allowing Lisa to spend more time with the kids was a Personal goal of Lisa, but it was our business goal, too. If we can allow Lisa to work less, the business is becoming more successful. Spending more time with the kids benefited our family because the kids now had two happier parents and having a happy wife with hope for a better future definitely sustains a healthy marriage. This goal was born when Lisa first started working for the business a few years ago. It was on the proverbial table whenever we discussed the business. I’m the dreamer and she’s the realist. I believed in the dream and spent my time preaching about how to do that- I plotted and I planned. We created tactics, small executable moments that would add up to our eventual objective.

When you open up a new business, your goals and dreams for your personal, business, and family life should be part of your every action. What do you want your family to look like or sound like after 3 years in business? How do you want to improve your marriage? If you create a habit of feeding all three sections of your life, when you need to feed one section more than the other, none of them will suffer.

A huge deal comes your way or you’ve just reached the tipping point in your business. Your lovely life with more family time and dates with your wife may be temporarily coming to an end because you’re needed in the business more. Guess who will complain? No one except for you. Everyone will understand- your children and your spouse. They now understand that you will come back when the dust settles. You will fight your way back to a healthier family life and marriage. You’ve built up credibility, so this is just a temporary setback or even a way to strengthen your family. Instead of a local 4 hour work week, maybe this new business will help you travel to Hawaii for the dream vacation you’ve been discussing for years.

As a member of the clergy, I have known many fellow clergy members who live unhappy lives. Or, they’re happy and fulfilled, but their family is unhealthy because their father, the clergy person, is hardly every home. Many authors have written about how we should write our own obituary. If you write about what you really want people to say about you, those words will seep into your life and you’ll work hard to create that life. I have been present at many clergy retirement celebrations where the congregation talks about how well the clergy person served the community- “He visited my mother every day for 3 months before she passed away” “He called me on my birthday every year for 10 years” “She was present at every event that the Sisterhood, Mens Club, Ritual Committee, Religious School, and Adult Ed Committee sponsored.” Time travel and cloning has not been perfected, yet. I know as Jewish clergy that his family will remain silent about how mom couldn’t be there for the kids’ recital because she was speaking at a synagogue event. Or, they will be silent about how he didn’t see his children every day until bedtime, because he was teaching, counseling, and representing the congregation. The clergy person probably filled her professional goals of being successful. Her kids may be happy and healthy despite her absence, but you know that she is saddened by the lack of time with her family and spouse. Whether you are a businessperson or clergyperson or a homemaker, you must wrestle with the three vision statements of personal, professional, and family.

The wise rabbis of Jewish tradition ask, “Who is wise? One who learns from his fellow man. Who is rich? One who is content with his portion.” I ask, “Who is successful? One who has lived a balanced life that enables her business to help grow and strengthen her ties with her family and friends. The successful one is happy personally, professionally, and family wise.

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Multiple Revenue Streams

Have multiple revenue streams so that you’re not always chasing after new customers. With my coffee roasterie, we have wholesale, retail, cold brew coffee by the bottle, specialty markets, coffee catering, online shopping cart, Carefree Coffee Club, coffee by the cup, and more. So, if the weather is nasty and retail is slow, my customers  can still buy coffee at the various specialty markets. If the weather is nice, customers will be flocking to the cafe and to all of the restaurant and cafe accounts that we serve. Give your employees ownership of the many different sources of revenue. Teach them how to create new business for you.

Take Care of Your Employees

In order to get on the right path, you need to pay your employees better than they expect to be paid, within reason and depending on your cash flow. In addition, you need to educate them on how to be you- that is, having the passion and joy for the business and your customers. The employee needs to know that you care about them personally and for their future. They’ll fight for you if you take care of them. You need to educate your employees with the idea and dream that you want to be useless. By useless, I mean that if you died (grim, yes, but true) the business would survive and thrive.

Teach them how to manage other employees in your absence. Designate who is in charge when you are not in the shop. I had an employee, who we’ll call Greg, who had a serious accident many years ago- he was in a coma for months. He had a serious closed head injury and he’s working hard with physical therapy to rehabilitate his body and mind. I had an interesting problem- he would follow through when I was present and I requested his help, but when I was not in the shop, he wouldn’t listen to my other employees. The reason was that he didn’t understand the chain of command. Regardless of whether you have an employee like Greg, designate who is the leader in your absence. Mentor that employee concerning managing people effectively.

Constructively criticize your employees with kindness. Correct even the smallest errors with words of encouragement and teach them what the objective and endpoint is for each task. With your employees, as with your children, you educate them to make great decisions when you are no longer present.

Imagine that your business is a franchise or that you intend to sell it

Is your business model so clear and powerful that you could sell it? Are your business processes so strong and unique that customers often ask, “Are you thinking of franchising this idea?” If all of your systems are clear and steady and there is accountability built into the systems, you, the owner, become less necessary.

What are the specific steps taken by employees when they receive new orders? They should answer the phone in a certain way and ask certain questions that help you grow your business and add value to the conversation, and they should have complete knowledge of what they are selling.

How do your employees greet customers? What are the questions that you expect them to be able to answer? Do they have the training to answer all of the usual and extraordinary questions possible? Train employees and model expected behavior and they will not need you around. If you wanted to sell your business, you would need to write down your vision statement as well as your mission statement.

Delegate, Sit Back, and Allow your employees to make mistakes, then correct them

When you know how to effectively run your business smoothly, slowly delegate all of your responsibilities to employees. Give them small morsels of responsibility until they’ve absorbed all of it. Then set them free, allow them to make mistakes, and resist the urge to “help” unless they’re getting into trouble that will hurt your business.

Educate your employees about your finances

Yes, teach your employees about the business, about your vision statement, and mission statement, but don’t neglect to tell them about the financial state of the business. Is your business in the midst of a cyclical downturn that causes poor cash flow? If yes, your employees should know that. It will impact their spending habits. They should be involved in the debate concerning just-in-time purchasing that assists with cash flow or whether there is enough money to gain greater purchasing power and lower prices with bulk purchasing. Show employees your P & L statement for certain months and share with them how they have helped to positively impact the bottom line. Treat them like shareholders in the company and share your vision for the company and create strategies and tactics to help them realize that vision.

Payroll is the toughest beast to control in any business. Pay too little and you have a disgruntled workforce. Pay too much and you will probably have lax employees, lower earnings, and you may not be able to pay yourself. However, when you point to the percentage of the company’s earnings compared to the payroll, and if you share with them what payroll needs to be for the company to thrive and survive, then you’ll have better employees. They won’t be lax with overtime and they’ll understand how much one hour of employment costs the company. Your employees will have some compassion on you because they understand how many hats you wear every day. Employees trust owners or managers who respect and trust them. If you are so secretive with your financial statements, you are either embarrassed by the numbers or you don’t trust anyone. Tell your closest business friends what really is happening financially in your business and you will learn that they had or are now having the same problems. It takes one secretive owner to ruin a business, but it takes a village to create a successful business where the owner transitions into the role of visionary.

Write a Job Description for yourself!

What do you do, exactly? Here are a few jobs that I currently do part-time or full-time:

Coffee Roaster, Salesperson, Green Bean (unroasted coffee beans) Purchaser, Social Media Marketing, Communications Director, Barista, Coffee Caterer, and Part-time bookkeeper.

After you write the job description for your “job” as owner of the company, look for ways to delegate those positions to your employees that take you away from the vision that you set forth.  Do you know what happens when you multitask? You become the master of nothing.

So, I’ve hired an assistant coffee roaster so that I can sit at my desk and grow the business or leave the shop and create some sales opportunities. This hire created peace in my life because I have more time with my family and more time to write books. I am also the master of social media for my business, but that’s a job that would take a tremendous amount of instruction because no one has my sense of humor or my passion for coffee- yet. Eventually, I’ll hire a green bean purchaser so that they can fret about coffee prices, availability, and quality. I hardly ever brew coffee for customers, work as cashier, or answer phones. My employees act as a buffer so that I may grow the company, dream about the future, and do things that make us money and help the community.

Take the job description that includes every task that you have owned and begin to slowly farm it out to your trusted employees or to other businesses. When you have sensitive computer files, intelligent people create multiple backup files to ensure the safety of that information. In the same way, create many different backup situations and jobs for the many tasks that are crucial for the success of your company. The result may be an increase in payroll, but you will be able to remove yourself from the daily grind. Go write a book. Spend more time with your family.

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